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Dragon Ball Z Kai
Dragon Ball Z Kai, known in Japan as , is an anime series that is a high-definition remastered and recut of Dragon Ball Z, done for its 20th Anniversary. It premiered on Fuji TV on April 5, 2009 at 9:00am just before One Piece and ended initially on March 27, 2011 with 97 episodes (a 98th episode was later released straight-to-video), and the two shows were marketed together as "Dream 9", which refers to the hour in which they both aired. The series average rating was 9.4%, with its maximum being 12.3% (Episode 47) and its minimum being 6.4% (Episode 18). Dragon Ball Kai returned to Japanese TV on April 6, 2014, with the Majin Buu Saga, and ended its run for the second and last time on June 28, 2015 with 61 episodes while the original uncut international version would go on to have 69 episodes (bringing the total episode count of the series to 159 for the original Japanese broadcast and 167 for the extended International broadcast).V-Jump, Issue #4, 2014 Overview The "Kai" (改「かい」) in the series' name means "updated," "modified," or "altered," reflecting it being an abridging of the original anime that removes a majority of its filler. Two issues of Shonen JUMP have included some primary information about the series. Interestingly, despite the series being only a director's cut of Dragon Ball Z, the Z'' has been completely removed from the title (at least in the original Japanese version). Funimation has dubbed ''Dragon Ball Kai into English for a North American release, under the release title of Dragon Ball Z Kai (more information can be viewed below). The series premiered on the Nicktoons network on May 24, 2010. This was quite a change, as all the Dragon Ball series have almost always appeared on in the United States. On August 14, 2010, the series premiered on 's Toonzai block. The uncut version of the series began airing on Adult Swim's Toonami block on November 8, 2014. It was shown on Kix in the United Kingdom. After episode 97, there were initially no plans for Dragon Ball Kai to reach the Majin Buu Saga. A new anime series based on the Toriko manga debuted in April 2011, taking over the Dragon Ball Kai time slot at 9 AM on Sunday mornings before the One Piece anime series. The 97th episode of the series was broadcast on March 27, 2011 in Japan, and January 1, 2012 in America. The series was in syndication in Japan for exactly two years. Despite this, the series has been one of the top 10 rated anime series every week since syndication began in April 2009. The 98th episode of the series, which recapped the entire series and provided some closure, was released to DVD/Blu-ray on August 2, 2011 in Japan and was aired on Nicktoons in the U.S. on February 8, 2013. In November 2012, it was confirmed that production of Dragon Ball Z Kai would continue and air outside of Japan. Mayumi Tanaka (the Japanese voice of Krillin in the series) posted news on her blog confirming that Dragon Ball Kai would be continuing, as voice work was already under way for the early stages of the Majin Buu story arc. Her post went on to specify that the series revival is for the overseas market, and as of the time of her post there are no plans to air the new episodes in Dragon Ball's home country of Japan. In April 2013, Sean Schemmel and Kyle Hebert (the Funimation dub voice actors for Goku and Gohan) confirmed they were recording their lines for the Funimation dub of the Buu Saga. In November 2013, when questioned about it on their Facebook page, it was stated by Australian anime distributor Madman Entertainment that the Buu Saga of Dragon Ball Z Kai should be released on November 8, 2014 on Cartoon Network, as they were just waiting on dubs to be finished. Dragon Ball Kai returned with the Majin Buu arc to Japanese TV on April 6, 2014, taking over the time slot previously occupied by Toriko. This story arc was comprised of 61 episodes for the Japanese version, and 69 episodes for the International version, raising the total episode count for the entire Kai series to 159 episodes for the Japanese version and 167 episodes for the International version. Series information The series was extensively "refreshed" for Japanese television. This is not a new animation, but rather a remastered edit that runs through Dragon Ball Z to provide a presentation that is as faithful to the original manga as possible, removing a majority of DBZ's padding and filler. Part of this is reformatting and extending the picture to 16:9 Widescreen. However, for episodes 1-98, this only exists with the footage used for the Japanese and Nicktoons broadcasts; the footage used for the home media release and Toonami broadcasts are in the original 4:3 ratio. Through digital processing, the image was made vibrant. All the music, damage and noise remaining on the Dragon Ball Z film is removed, making the image much clearer in high-definition. A comparison with the original video side-by-side shows considerable cropping to achieve the 16:9 aspect ratio. However, it seems carefully done to avoid missing anything important. The original image is not stretched, just cut where it would be more appropriate, being a "tilt and scan" or "reverse pan and scan" of the original Dragon Ball Z footage. for "Kai".]] Dragon Ball Kai includes a complete re-recording of the dialog by most of the original Japanese voice cast (in part due to the master audio for Z'' being permanently lost), as well as completely new sound design with updated sound effects. The opening and ending themes are completely new. Takayoshi Tanimoto performs the series' opening themes "Dragon Soul" and "Kuu-Zen-Zetsu-Go", and the closing theme "Yeah! Break! Care! Break!" This new opening and closing credits have newly animated appearances by most of the main cast, as well as for the villains, such as Raditz, Nappa, Vegeta, Frieza, Zarbon, Dodoria, and the Ginyu Force. There's also a new artwork clip after every intermission, such as one of Cui and Vegeta in episode 19. Unlike the original ''Dragon Ball Z, which only had two sets of eyecatches for the entire series, in Dragon Ball Kai, it changes every few episodes to feature an appropriate character ensemble/situation. As with most filler sequences in Dragon Ball Z, the Garlic Jr. Saga does not air in Dragon Ball Kai. Originally lasting from episodes 108 to 117, the saga featured the return of Garlic Jr., the main villain from the first DBZ movie. The saga was completely filler and Garlic Jr. or any of his henchmen did not appear in the original manga. Because Kai stays truer to the manga, this saga has been completely cut out. The first 98 episodes of Kai feature new digital animation, often used to rectify continuity errors in the source print. Among other things, Vegeta's red palette while on an unnamed planet in the beginning of the series has been altered to the color scheme used from his arrival on Earth-onwards; however, Nappa's armor still uses a different palette, bearing brown pauldrons and banding instead of the standard marigold. Shots of Piccolo bleeding red blood are also altered to recolor his blood purple, such as in the Dragon Ball recap of episode one or during his fight with Raditz. However, when Raditz is explaining to Goku about the Saiyans, Vegeta has his red color scheme. Confirmed episodes of Dragon Ball Kai to have new animation inserted include: 16, 21, 22, and 24 through 54. Episode 16 is the first episode in the series that includes several instances of completely new animation spliced in with the original. More than likely, this was done to bridge gaps left behind when filler material was removed, so as to keep the length and pace of the episode intact. It is also possible that this was done to replace frames that were damaged beyond the point of repair in the original film prints. This is seen again in episode 21 at time indexes 14:25 through 14:50 and again numerous times, interlaced with the original animation, starting at 18:44 and lasting until 21:44 (the end of the episode). The style of the animation should be considered "neo-classic" for it is designed to blend in seamlessly with the existing animation. For the Androids Saga, the animation in the opening scene and closing credits has been altered a bit to fit the current storyline. New animations of Dr. Gero, Android 19, Android 17, Android 18, Android 16, and Cell appear, as well as the Super Saiyan appearances of Goku, Vegeta, Future Trunks, and Gohan. The new intro also showcases battles taking place within the saga, such as Vegeta vs. #18, Piccolo vs. #17, #16 vs. Cell, Goku vs. Cell, and ends showing a sequence of the Dragon Team standing together with their Cell Saga appearances. The ending credits are also different, showcasing Goku flying with Shenron as the faces of the main cast appear. He proceeds to transform into a Super Saiyan and the cast joins him in flight. The sequence ends with the Z Fighters standing in front of the Earth, with Shenron and Porunga in the backdrop. For the Majin Buu Saga, the show uses a different remaster done in-house at Toei Animation. This version is shot in cropped 16:9 rather than the original 4:3 ratio, even for the American release, and features a noticeable greenish tint compared to the Dragon Ball Z Blu-rays. Additionally, the neo-classic animation by Q-TEC that appeared throughout the previous 98 episodes is gone (due to Toei now re-mastering the footage in-house), and a new animated intro sequence for the series is used with fights and events corresponding with the Majin Buu Saga, such as Goku vs Majin Vegeta, Super Buu using his Human Extinction Attack, Goku, Vegeta, Goten, and Trunks fusing into Vegito and Gotenks, respectively, then moves to Potential Unleashed Gohan and Gotenks vs Super Buu, and finally, Goku transforming into Super Saiyan 3 and then fighting Kid Buu, with the former launching a massive energy blast and the latter firing his Kamehameha, the sequence ends with the heroes in assembly as Super Saiyan 3 Goku drops by and powers up. This arc had five different newly animated endings, with each ending that corresponds to the arc's sagas or situations (like "Oh Yeah!!!!!!!" for the Fusion Saga or "Don't Let Me Down" for the Kid Buu and the Peaceful World Sagas.) Toei released the first set on DVD and Blu-ray in September, 2009 in 4:3 aspect ratio, which is said that is how it was originally created and was only 16:9 ratio before because it was cropped for HD TV. The refreshed series also spawned a stage play named Dragon Ball Kai: Super Battle Stage. Music Dragon Ball Kai used a new background musical score by Kenji Yamamoto, composer of the Dragon Ball video games. His score was used regularly for all releases of episodes 1-95, however, he was given a layoff notice from Toei Animation after it was discovered that he had spent nearly his entire career at Toei infringing off of works from various western artists (such as Earth, Wind and Fire, Pink Floyd, Stratovarius, Propaganda, James Horner and Danny Elfman) and eventually resigned. The last few episodes of Dragon Ball Kai, as well as Japanese reruns of past episodes, made use of music recycled from Dragon Ball Z by Shunsuke Kikuchi (although the Dragon Ball Kai theme songs remained intact), however, the placing of the music differed from the original series. It is unconfirmed if the original matching of the tracks with the scenes as the original series will ever be released. The American broadcast of Dragon Ball Z Kai was affected as well. The 5th American DVD/Blu-ray volume was delayed twice, due to Funimation replacing Yamamoto's score with the original Dragon Ball Z background score for the remainder of the English release of Dragon Ball Z Kai, for the DVDs/Blu-rays (all episodes) and the TV Version (all episodes). The re-released Dragon Ball Kai collections including episodes 1-26 and episodes 27-52 have included the random placement of the original tracks. It is possible, though, that Funimation has not disposed of the original masters as Toonami mistakenly aired the Yamamoto score for the first episode. Norihito Sumitomo, who composed music for the film Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Gods, would succeed Yamamoto for the series' music, and composed new background music for the series' Majin Buu Saga, and some of this arc's music was reused for the new series Dragon Ball Super, in which Sumitomo also composed the scores. Recasts Funimation Navarre revealed during its Q3 2010 earnings conference call, on February 2, 2010, that its North American anime distributor Funimation had licensed the Dragon Ball Kai series for release in the "latter part of the upcoming fiscal year." However, it was re-titled Dragon Ball Z Kai. Funimation later confirmed the license with AnimeNewsNetwork.com. Dragon Ball Z Kai Part One was released to DVD and Blu-ray on May 18, 2010. The cast for Kai was mostly the same as DBZ except for a few re-casts for various reasons. The English dub for the series is produced by Okatron 5000 in Dallas, TX, US at the same recording studio used for the [[List of Dragon Ball video games|video games of the Dragon Ball franchise]], with Christopher Sabat as one of the primary voice directors. Cartoon Network, broadcaster of all previous Dragon Ball media, passed on the rights to show Dragon Ball Z Kai (though the series would eventually air on the channel as part of Adult Swim). Instead, Kai premiered on Nicktoons in the U.S. on May 24, 2010. The series was edited on Nicktoons to fit the intended audience, and occasionally contains different verbiage than the home release, which is entirely unedited. Some character attacks regained their correct and untranslated-proper-noun announcements in the unedited dub (i.e. "Makankōsappō" instead of Special Beam Cannon, "Kienzan" instead of Destructo Disc, etc.), although some of the official English names for the attacks are retained for the broadcast version. Most other names used in the English dub remain the same (i.e. Krillin and Tien Shinhan instead of "Kuririn" and "Tenshinhan"). Less liberty is taken with the script, and episode titles are mostly literal translations of their original Japanese versions. Nicktoons' broadcast originally used Kenji Yamamoto's musical score, however it changed to Shunsuke Kikkuichi's cues after the music plagiarism incident (see "Music" above). The opening theme was retained, although shortened to allow time for more commercials. The broadcast uses Vic Mignogna's version of the theme song for the full run, even though his complete version was only used for Episodes 27 - 39 on the official home video release. The ending theme was usually cut, and the credits were shown in split screen, although a shorter version of the ending was used on occasion. The CW also aired Funimation's English dub of Dragon Ball Z Kai in their Toonzai block (later named Vortexx). Their broadcast contained most of the edits of the Nicktoons version, as well as extra editing to fit the stricter broadcast standards (see "English adaptations" below). Like Nicktoons' broadcast, the Toonzai broadcast featured the Kenji Yamamoto score before being replaced with the Shunsuke Kikuchi score. English Recasts Episodes Toei Animation stated that the Dragon Ball Kai episodes would be edited to more closely follow Akira Toriyama's original story in the manga, resulting in a faster moving story, and to remove any damaged frames. Dragon Ball Kai minimizes the filler material produced for Dragon Ball Z's original production run. On the broadcast episodes, only a few minutes of filler material with no impact to the story have been left in (like Gregory's appearance at King Kai's Planet, who wasn't present in the manga), probably to help the episode reach its full 20 min. Happinet (the Japanese company releasing the series on DVD and Blu-ray) announced the Japanese DVD and Blu-ray release would have an end point of "98 Episodes (tentative)" meaning the planned and announced episode count would end at 99.happinet-p.com Actually, Dragon Ball Kai was supposed to last for 98 episodes, but everything had originally been thrown off an entire week due to the horrific tsunami that struck Japan the prior week. The series temporarily ended with 97 episodes on March 27, 2011, and the 98th episode was later released direct-to-video on August 2, 2011. Later, the series returned with 61 Majin Buu Saga episodes, beginning on April 6, 2014. English adaptations The title screen translations are far more similar this time around, but are changed to fit properly into English. Edits were been made to the version appearing on Nicktoons; these include the removal of blood (which sometimes is replaced with black grayish liquid where the blood is supposed to be), overly violent moments, profanity and others. The CW's Toonzai airings, however, were edited even more so than the Nicktoons version, due to tighter restrictions on broadcast programming. These edits include recoloring Mr. Popo's skin from black to blue, replacing dead characters' halos with glowing orbs, removing virtually all references to death in both dialogue and episode titles, and renaming certain special techniques (i.e. Goku's Spirit Bomb renamed as the "Spirit Blast" and Vegeta's Galick Gun as the "Galick Blast"). Also in the beginning of the intro song, Toonzai edited out Shenron and replaced him with a green colored sky. On Nicktoons, the series aired from May 24, 2010 to February 8, 2013. The series returned with the 69 Majin Buu Saga episodes in 2014 in Europe, carrying the sub-title "The Final Chapters". This remastered and reedited series was broadcasted in the UK on Kix, in Portugal on Sic Radical, in Poland on AXN Spin, and in France on Game One. On May 25, 2014, Funimation and Adult Swim announced that the English dub of Dragon Ball Z Kai would air uncut on Adult Swim's Toonami block starting in fall 2014. The show began airing at 12:00 AM on November 8, 2014, replacing Bleach. Starting on February 21, 2015, a rerun of the previous weeks episode began airing at 8:00 PM on Saturdays outside of the Toonami block, with a new episode at its 12:00 AM time slot as part of Toonami. On December 7, 2016, it was announced via multiple media outlets that the English dub of Dragon Ball Z Kai: The Final Chapters would make its U.S. debut on Toonami on January 7, 2017 at midnight, after Dragon Ball Super. The series ended on June 23, 2018. DVD/Blu-Ray All the Japanese and Funimation DVD and Blu-ray releases are presented in an original 4:3 aspect ratio, although there is an option to zoom the picture to a 16:9 aspect ratio using the television remote to make it appear identical to the original Japanese broadcast. The uncut box set entitled Dragon Ball Z Kai Part One was released on the 18th of May 2010, and Part Two was released on the 14th of September, 2010. * As stated on back of case Staff *'Series & Episode Director': Yasuhiro Nowatari *'Assistant Episode Director': Yasunori Koyama *'Producer': Gō Wakabayashi, Kazuya Watanabe, Kohei Obara, Kyotaro Kimura, Makoto Seino *'Production Chief': Atsunori Kazama *'Planning': Kōzō Morishita, Yoko Matsusaki *'Series Composition Cooperation': Kazutaka Satoh (Caramel Mama) *'Script': Aya Matsui, Hiroshi Toda, Katsuyuki Sumisawa, Keiji Terui, Sumio Uetake, Takao Koyama, Toshiki Inoue *'Animation': Naotoshi Shida (OP & ED Staff), Tadayoshi Yamamuro (OP & ED Staff), Tatsuya Nagamine (OP & ED Staff), Yasunori Gotō (OP & ED Staff) *'Music': Kenji Yamamoto, Shunsuke Kikuchi, Norihito Sumitomo *'Sound Director': Yukio Nagasaki, Satoshi Motoyama *'Sound Effects': Hidenori Arai (Fizz Sound Creation) *'Editing': Kenta Katase, Shinichi Fukumitsu (eps 1-10) *'HD Editing': Emi Maruo, Tetsuro Tsukada Theme songs *Opening (OP): **"Dragon Soul" version 1: episodes 1~29 **"Dragon Soul" version 2: episodes 30~54 **"Dragon Soul" version 3: episodes 55~68 **"Dragon Soul" version 4: episodes 69~98 **"Kuu-Zen-Zetsu-Go": episode 99~159 (Japanese version) **"Fight it out" (performed by Masatoshi Ono, with the musical composition by Yō Yamazaki and lyrics by Hiroshi Yamada): episode 99~167 (international version) *Endings (ED): **"Yeah! Break! Care! Break!: episodes 1~54 **"Wings of the Heart": episodes 55~98 **"Never give up!!!" by Junear: episodes 99~167 (international version) **"Dear Zarathustra": episodes 99~111 (Japanese version) **"Junjō": episodes 112~124 (Japanese version) **"Oh Yeah!!!!!!!": episodes 125~137 (Japanese version) **"GALAXY": episodes 138~148 (Japanese version) **"Don't Let Me Down": episodes 149~159 (Japanese version) *Insert Songs (IN): **"Over the Star" by Saki Oshitani (episode 17) **"Saiyan Blood" by Ryō Horikawa (episode 41) **"Chou Super Dragon Soul" by Takayoshi Tanimoto (episode 41) **"Tatta Hitori no Senshi" by Takeshi Kusao (episode 82) **"Only a Chilling Elegy" by Demon Kakka (Funimation dub) **"Cha-La Head-Cha-La" by FLOW (episode 167) (International dub) Trivia *In the 1st ending credits ("Yeah! Break! Care! Break!"), Launch is shown along with the rest of the cast while all the scenes from Dragon Ball Z she was in were filler that have been cut out from Kai (except for her brief appearance in the Kid Buu Saga when she gives her energy to Goku's Spirit Bomb). *Some (but not all) of the more gory moments have been edited to a degree in even the Japanese version of Dragon Ball Kai. For example, when Piccolo fires his Special Beam Cannon at Raditz and Goku, he creates a hole through both of them and a heavy amount of blood is shown in Dragon Ball Z, while no blood is seen at all in Kai and the holes that Piccolo creates in the centers of their bodies are replaced with burn marks. Similarly, in the scene where Krillin blasts a hole through Vegeta during the Frieza Saga, only blood stains are seen in Kai while in Dragon Ball Z, there is blood coming out of the hole. Other edits in Kai include all instances when someone "flips the bird". Nudity is notably edited as well, such as in the first episode of Kai whenever baby Goku is shown, his genitals are covered up by making objects that he is sitting on appear to be covering his genitals. In a similar manner in episode 4 of Kai, Gohan's genitals are edited as well by using his tail to cover him when he is shrinking from his Great Ape state to his normal self. All these edits are made quite possibly because Japan's television broadcasting laws have become stricter since Dragon Ball Z was first aired, though it may also have been due to Kai airing at 9am instead of primetime like DBZ did in Japan. *In the 48th episode, "The Angry Super Saiyan! Goku Throws Down the Gauntlet!", Goku announces in front of Frieza "I am the Super Saiyan, Son Goku!" This marks the first time in the history of the Funimation-dubbed Dragon Ball anime series (both Ocean dub and in-house combined) that Goku has addressed himself by his full name (in Japanese order), "Son Goku", though he did previously refer to himself as such during the same scene in the English dub of the video game Dragon Ball Z: Burst Limit. **In a video reddit interview, Sean Schemmel said that it was his idea to say Goku's full name, but that he needed permission to use. Schemmel thought that it was fitting for that moment and that fans would love it. *Parts 1-4 of the DVD/Blu-ray releases by Funimation are now out of print, as the music on them was composed by Kenji Yamamoto, who was fired near the end of Kai's run due to the rampant plagiarism within his portfolio, which caused re-runs, later episodes, and the season sets to switch over to the original Dragon Ball Z soundtrack by Shunsuke Kikuchi. Parts 6-8 have also gone out of print, because all these releases were replaced by new season sets containing two "Parts" worth of episodes each. **Due to an error, the original release for the season set containing episodes 1-26 still had the Kenji Yamamoto score. The sets were quickly recalled, and a corrected version was later released alongside the second season set. **Norihito Sumitomo eventually took over for the Majin Buu Saga and some of the music from this arc were recycled for the later series Dragon Ball Super, whose music was also composed by Sumitomo. Sumitomo previously composed music for the film Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Gods and composed again for Dragon Ball Z: Resurrection ‘F’. *Strangely, unlike the original DBZ, the Majin Buu arc of Kai has greenish tinting and somewhat grainy picture compared to the previous arcs, whose images have more vibrant, fluid definition and brighter colors (this was due to Toei remastering the footage themselves for the final arc instead of Q-TEC). *In the Majin Buu Saga of Kai, Super Buu's originally white eyes before his fight with Gotenks were recolored red to fix an inconsistency of Kid Buu's flashback, where his eyes were red. *For The Final Chapters, Oolong's original Funimation voice, Brad Jackson, returned for the role, previously, he was voiced by Bryan Massey, but, Turtle and Mr. Popo were still voiced by Chris Cason, Dr. Briefs was still voiced by Mark Stoddard, and Android 18 remains voiced by Colleen Clinkenbeard, all except the former whom reprised their roles from the previous arcs and would do so in Dragon Ball Super, however, Meredith McCoy, Android 18's original Funimation voice actress, voices her in Super, reprising her role from Battle of Gods and Resurrection ‘F’. *Ironically, in Super, Alexis Tipton replaces Laura Bailey as Trunks while in Kai, it is Erasa (formerly voiced by Bailey) that gets her voice replaced by Tipton, and Trunks is still voiced by Bailey, both the Super and Kai series seemingly switched voices between Tipton and Bailey for both Erasa and Trunks or vice-versa. *The Latin American dubs are the only ones in the world where the DBZ Kai: Final Chapters opening and ending themes were dubbed. Gallery See also *List of Dragon Ball Z Kai episodes *''Dragon Ball Kai: Super Battle Stage'' References External links *Official Toei Animation's website *Official Funimation's website *Official Madman's website ca:Bola de Drac Z Kai fr:Dragon Ball Kai es:Dragon Ball Z Kai pt-br:Dragon Ball Z Kai Category:Dragon Ball media Category:Dragon Ball Z